Chronicles of the Blind Bandit
by Metella
Summary: Oneshots centered around different themes. See a younger Toph, see an older Toph, read the letter she sent to her parents, get into her head, and peruse random awesomeness . . . get a behind-the-scenes look at ATLA through her eyes . . . or feet.
1. Thunder and Lightning

**Thunder and Lightning**

When she was little, Toph had been truly afraid of thunderclaps. If they were close enough, they could make the whole house rattle, blurring and overwhelming her unique senses.

But one day, she finally got fed up with cowering in her room. She wanted to look this force in the eye. Meet it face-to-face. Or rather, element-to-foot.

So, as the rain pattered against the slate tiles of the house, she snuck out.

As the warm torrent soaked her, she hunted for a solid patch of ground amidst the squelching mud to see clearly. And then she waited.

No less than a mile away, the tiny child felt the immense energy strike the ground. The earth moaned to her as it took the blow.

But _that_ wasn't the source of the rumbling. It was coming from . . . the sky? A _skyquake?_

That's when her mother rushed out into the gale, shouting her name. She was barely audible above the wind.

The woman caught sight of her daughter, drenched and shaking. "Baby, darling, what are you doing out here? My Spirits, it's dangerous!" Her mother seized her quickly but gently and carried her back to the house.

"We have to get you out of those clothes! Mina, Mina! Go get her a change of clothes!" Her mother called to one of the servants.

Poppy set her down and held onto her tightly, desperately. The delicate wet fabric of their dresses clung to their skin. They were most likely ruined. But that didn't matter, not right then. "Toph, what were you _doing_ out there?" she squeaked.

"I was looking at the lightning."

"Were you scared, dear?" Poppy asked her quietly.

"I was. But the earth told me that it was all right, mommy. It was supposed to accept the energy. It said if it didn't everything would be out of balance. And that it hurt a little, but it's okay."

"You're hurt! Where?" Her mother's voice took on a frantic pitch as she pulled away and started looking over her.

"No, no," the little girl said matter-of-factly, "the _earth _was hurt a little. But it said it would be all right."

Her mother embraced her again. Now _she_ was shaking. "P-please promise me you w-won't go out in a storm again, Toph."

"I promise, mommy. Now that I know, it's okay."

* * *

**_AfterNote: I feel obligated to mention some AMAZING Toph-centric oneshots that have inspired me.  
_**

**Brave Soldier Girl Comes Marching Home. by Serendipity1 **-The reunion.**  
**

**Blind. by GunboatDebater **-Toph's greatest fear. Much more poignant than this one I wrote.**  
**

**Scaring and Brotherhood. by Written Parody** -sibling-flavored Toko

**Her Name is Toph. by Masako Moonshade** -Iroh/Toph friendship


	2. Patriot

**Patriot**

_Crossroads of Destiny. What SHOULD have happened in Ba Sing Se (No Zutara) _

Long Feng's footsteps clicked on the polished stone floor of Ba Sing Se's palace throne room. He stared down the princess who stood, quite at ease, square Earth Kingdom patterns radiating out from the wall behind her.

"Now comes the part where I double cross you."

He softly addressed the fifteen men behind him, in rows of five. "Dai Li, arrest the Fire Nation Princess."

They were still.

He turned to face them, annoyed. "I _said_, _**arrest**_ her." He pointed.

Still no movement.

He swept his gaze angrily back and forth across the collection of familiar green robes. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"It's because they haven't made up their minds," came Azula's sighing, disaffected voice. "They're waiting to see how this is going to end."

"What are you talking about?" Long Feng demanded, facing her again and tensing.

"I can see your whole history in your eyes." She said as her own golden orbs pierced his olive ones. "You were born with nothing. So you had to struggle and connive and claw your way to power. But true power, the divine right to rule, is something you're _born with_. The fact is, they don't know which one of us is going to be sitting on that throne and which one is going to be bowing down. But I know." She gave just the slightest pause. "And you know." She turned to sit, still gazing coldly at him. 'Well?" she prompted for his response.

After several moments' hesitation, at the Crossroads of his Destiny, he steps forward and kneels. "You've beaten me at my own game."

. . . . .

Toph couldn't _believe_ what she was hearing. And she knew her sensitive hearing was never wrong.

"_Wait just ONE MINUTE_." As Long Feng uttered his last word, Toph leapt out from her hiding place behind a marble pillar, enraged. "_The __**Earth Kingdom's elite**__ are going to bow down to some pompous, whiny, self-important Fire Nation girl? You're going to give in to fancy-shmancy WORDS?_" She pounded both her fists into the ground and her element jutted up under Azula's seat, dumping her out unceremoniously to the floor.

"Attack!" Azula commanded, picking herself up quickly.

There was undecided shifting among the Dai Li ranks as they heard the command of the Fire Princess and regarded their tiny fellow Earth Kingdom citizen.

Toph pointed. "YOU, Long Feng, the guy who dragged us around by the nose for weeks on end, one of the most powerful men in Ba Sing Se," her voice was rising, "Are you that much of a _lily-livered, spineless weasel-mouse_ that you would just roll over and give up everything you've worked for?"

Azula snarled, "Attack or I will-"

Long Feng stood, face stern. "Or you'll do what?"

Toph grinned and cracked her knuckles. "Let's take her down, Long Feng."

It was then that Azula realized she was alone in a room with seventeen very powerful earthbenders.

_Shit._


	3. Dragon of the West

**Dragon of the West**

Iroh/Toph friendship.

Slightest, barest hint of Tokka and Toko.

She felt the far off form of the huge Drill as it closed in on Ba Sing Se. The massive vibrations moved up through the Great Wall and into her being, telling her that this was definitely not going to be the peaceful entry to the city they had expected. _Well, at least I get to see some action before having to go back into the big city with boring rules and confines . . ._

As they neared Ba Sing Se, she had begun to realize just how much she would resent going back into a city, reminding her of her parents and their strict social regulations.

But now she could focus on the immediate danger. That drill. The earthquake-that-was-not-an-earthquake.

It reminded her of the other Fire Nation invention that had been used to pursue her and her friends- the one that housed three girls riding mongoose dragons. She had a gut instinct that those same girls would be in this contraption, too. Thinking of them tied a knot in her stomach. But not out of fear of them. A different fear. When they had been chasing them, she had only been with Aang's group for a few days. That was when . . .

That kind old man.

He had poured her tea. That in itself was nice. But he had perhaps done her the greatest favor he could- making her realize that she needed to help her new friends. And accept their help, too.

Spirits, _was he alive?_

She remembered the intense heat of the flame beating at her face, produced by the guy she guessed to be his nephew, and would later find out was Zuko. She would never admit it to anyone, but fire unnerved her just a bit. She couldn't see it at all.

Several days after their encounter, several days after they had left the old man with an erratic and fragile heartbeat fluttering against the ground, several days _after_ Katara said, "I can help," Toph found out what she meant.

Katara had healing abilities.

In _addition_ to regular waterbending.

At the revelation Toph had to fight the impulse to jump up and strangle the older girl.

_Is that why you said that? Why didn't you stay and heal him? Dammit, if I had known there was no way I would've let you leave him like that!_

She had been especially rough with Aang during training that day.

Toph was prodded out of her reminiscence by the annoyingly smug voice of General Sung, talking about the drill.

"It is an honor to welcome you to the outer wall young Avatar, but your help is not needed."

Aang's voice matched her own incredulity. "Not needed?"

"Not needed." He repeated. "I have the situation under control. I assure you the Fire Nation cannot penetrate this wall. Many have tried to break through it, but none have succeeded."

"What about the Dragon of the West?" Toph asked bluntly. "He got in." Despite what little her parents had allowed her to learn of the outside world, and her handicap of not being able to read, she knew that Ba Sing Se was the last great stronghold of her country, and she knew a little bit of history. She felt a small surge of resentment at the Fire Nation general who had succeeded in knocking through its great wall, the testament to the work of countless and dedicated earthbenders. What was his name? Iroh?

"Well…uh…technically yes." Sung stuttered. "But he was quickly expunged."

_Thank goodness._

"Nevertheless, that is why the city is named Ba Sing Se. It's the impenetrable city. They don't call it Na Sing Se." He joked. "_That_ means penetrable city."

Toph was unamused at his attempt at humor. "Yeah, thanks for the tour, but we still got the drill problem."

.

.

.

.

.

.

Several weeks later, Toph was riding atop Appa, mind spinning frantically.

The general who had breached Ba Sing Se's walls. She hadn't remembered that he was the current Fire Lord's brother.

Iroh.

He was the old man who had been so kind to her.

Zuko was Prince. And he was his uncle.

It had all clicked into place as she rushed with Sokka to warn the Earth King of Azula and the Dai Li's coup. After she had left the man with Aang.

Where exactly did the loyalties lie in this family? And why did Zuko have to be saved from his own sister?

When she felt Katara holding Aang- and sensed only one heartbeat, her own heart nearly stopped.

Katara used the Spirit Oasis water on him.

And _thank all the Spirits_, it _worked._

Toph sat in the creaking wooden-and-leather saddle, the night wind brushing at her skin, giving her goosebumps despite its warmth. She almost didn't have the courage to ask the questions that were eating at her from the inside out. Iroh hadn't come back with them. Could he have had something to do with . . . Did that mean that he . . .

The flames from his nephew came back to her mind.

The lilting, creepy voice of his niece.

Had he _helped_ them . . . _kill_ Aang?

Or did _he_ get injured? . . . Killed?

She grabbed on to Sokka's arm for support as a wave of conflicting nausea passed over her, only made worse by the flying.

"You alright?" He said, returning her grip with his other hand.

"K-Katara," Toph said hoarsely. "W-what happened to Iroh?" She could have just as easily said 'What did Iroh do?' But she wanted to badly to believe he had sided with them.

Katara's voice was hard. "Zuko attacked us with his sister." And then it softened. "But Iroh defended us from the Dai Li."

Toph straightened and her voice cracked as equal parts relief and worry crashed in on her. "So y-you just _left_ him? Left him with the girl who _struck Aang with lightning_?"

"I don't think Zuko will let her hurt him, Toph." Sokka said softly, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze.

And with that sentence, with that gesture, she no longer remembered the angry flame that had been directed at them, but instead the startled heartbeat, the rigid muscles of the prince as the fire struck. And the frustrated, grief-filled sound he had made as he threw up his hands, kneeling at his uncle's side.

"I'm counting on you, then, Zuko." She whispered. "If you have any shred of dignity, you'll keep him safe." _For me._

* * *

**_Author's Note: The "Dragon of the West" line is indeed in "The Drill" episode. Make of it what you will._**


	4. Hawky's Message

First of all, I don't want you to hold this against Aang. You acted like you were really mad at him when he requested that I come. This might have been his idea, but it was MY decision. And I'm not ashamed of it. I finally have friends here, mom and dad, which you never let me have. They take care of me, and we watch each others' backs. I'm really enjoying traveling, too. I'm getting to see the world, so to speak.

Second, I can see now that you wanted to keep me home because you love me and you care about me. But I'm not going to tell you I'm not angry. You sent two bozos after me and they LOCKED me in a METAL BOX. (Granted, that IS how I learned how to metalbend- I'll have to show you that when I get home). But is that what you wanted? What did you expect to do with me once they got me back? Keep me in a metal prison cell? _Honestly,_ I don't know _what_ was going through your heads.

_But most importantly_, I want to say I'm sorry. I didn't give you a chance. I hid my abilities from you and I _assumed_ that you wouldn't understand. I could have tried to show Master Yu that I knew some more advanced moves, I could have told him how much I could really "see" with earthbending. I could have let you know gradually. But I let the two personalities spring up, the one I knew and the one you knew, without trying to bridge the gap. And I swear, even if that gap is as big as the Great Divide, when I get home, I'm going to try to make it up to you.

I really miss you. I'm looking forward to seeing you again, despite how _annoying_ you can be.

But I have an important mission, an important place. And my new friends need me. Please don't worry about me, guys. I'm a lot stronger than you think.

-Toph

P.S. No, I haven't learned how to write. My friend Katara is acting as my scribe.


	5. Slumber

Wow.

That was all she could think.

Sleeping on the ground, feeling the pulses of the earth under her:it was _worlds_ different than sleeping at home. Back there, she had been effectively 'blind' while lying on a turtle-goose down mattress. The first few nights with her new friends, closed off in her earthen tent, she was almost unable to drift off because of the amazing 'sights' afforded by the contact. Herds of fox-antelopes strolling by, water running through channels it carved, even the near-imperceptible shiftings of the ground itself. Most people think of earth as rigid and unmoving. But she had realized long ago that there were tremors, mini-earthquakes going on all the time- it functioned as white noise to her, something she had to filter out during the day. When she was lying there, still and aware, everything she could sense suddenly became 'louder.'

Then Fire Nation girls began to chase them in that big metal rumbling earthquake-that-was-not-an-earthquake. They emerged on reptilian mounts to engage them, the light, fast steps of the quadripeds making it hard for Toph to focus on them clearly. She was reminded of her difficulty with Twinkle-Toes, and that made her angry. "We can take 'em!" She said, meaning, _I'm not going to let that same trick beat me again._ Her ears pinpointed arrows' whistle through the air and she blocked them with an rock column. She wanted to stay to fight. But the others wanted to run, and so the 'not-earthquake,' unappeased, continued to hound them mercilessly.

Now, when Toph was deprived of what little sleep she was getting before, it was no wonder that she fought so vehemently with Katara.

When at last they had outrun the enemies, Toph again felt the ground under her, exhaustion overwhelming. All the 'sights,' all the 'sounds,' became a soothing lullaby. Its reassuring music told her weary body one thing: She was in her element.

And after that, Toph always slept like a baby, cradled by her Mother Earth.


	6. Tea Talk

**Tea Talk**

Toph's first encounter with Iroh, from her POV

(unabridged and uninterrupted)

_Stupid Katara. I carry my own weight. What right does she have to boss me around?_

_How could I be such an idiot? I could be back at home, eating roast duck for dinner instead of whatever burned scraps of meat they can scrounge up. I could be pummeling those losers at the Earth Rumble and listening to the adoring roars of my fans. But **noooooo**, I chose to go with them. And **how** do they thank me? _

Her feet dug into the soft loamy soil as she strode furiously through the forest.

_And then Aang yells at me about the stupid bison. Spirits, riding that thing is awful. It's not my fault he sheds so much and keeps those three Fire Nation girls hot on our trail. Did he seriously say that my added weight is slowing that behemoth down? I only weigh like, sixty pounds. How much does that thing weigh? Two tons?_

_And by the way, good luck avoiding ambush without MY skills, guys. I can see them coming from miles away. But you'll be lucky if you can catch sight of them before-_

A sudden wave of worry swept through her and she halted.

_No, no, I am NOT going back. _

She resumed her pace.

_If we had just stayed and fought the three bimbos the first time like I wanted to, then they wouldn't even be in this mess in the first pla-_

A vibration. Close.

She shifted her feet to face it, cursing herself for letting her attention wander. She was in strange territory, and she needed to pay attention. The man was 'concealed' on the other side of a rocky promontory, a good place for an ambush, had it been anyone who saw normally. _You don't know who you're dealing with._ Toph scowled and struck swiftly.

The man she had sensed took the blow and fell forward, away from her. She 'saw' him land on his knees.

Toph darted forward, nimbly ascending the rock that jutted up out of the ground. She examined him. _Short and overweight._

He groaned.

_And by the sound of it, old to boot._

"That really hurt my tailbone."

"Thought you could hide behind _this_?" She stomped a foot into the large rock outcropping she was standing on. _Well, that's too bad, because I could see you anyway._"No one sneaks up on me."_  
_

The man rolled over to sit and look up at her. "I'm sorry, what?" He inquired, completely bewildered. He spread his hands peacefully. "I mean you no harm."

_Well, that's true enough._ She thought as she sensed his heartrate continue a smooth decline from the sudden shock.

She straightened. "Sorry. I guess I'm wound a little tight right now." She turned to step back down and threw a hand up. "See ya." She said brusquely.

"Wait. Would you like some tea? It is good for your nerves."

She turned slightly, incredulous. "I just knocked you down." _And you're offering me tea?_

"You apologized." He put one hand to a knee and hoisted himself up.

"Oh . . . kay." She said hesitantly. "My name's Toph, by the way."

"I am Mushi."

_Not according to your heatbeat, you're not._ "If you're not going to tell me your real name, I'm not going to stick around."

He sucked in a breath. "Well, I-"

She grinned as his blood pressure spiked in surprise. _Try figuring that one out._

But then her face fell. "Though I guess we all have secrets, don't we? Stuff we're running from."

"I suppose . . . you have a highly developed sense of _hearing_ to be able to tell if people are lying."

She snorted. _You have a lot of __**tact**__, old man._ "It's not just the sound. It's also your blood pressure and heart rate."

He stroked his beard. "Really, now?"

She crossed her arms and nodded. "I can see your hand at your face too."

He turned his head to look at the rock she had bended under him. "You feel things through the earth?"

If possible, she grinned even wider. "You have no idea how refreshing it is to not have to _explain_ it."

He laughed.

Toph loved watching people laugh. The heartrate increases just a bit, but it isn't the agitated speed of stress. The muscles tense too, but afterwards they are more relaxed, and blood pressure drops.

"Well, if you do not mind," he said politely and delicately, "I would very much love to find a view of the sunset while we drink."

_Any other time I would find that annoying._ The blind girl thought, remembering the others talking about the 'great views' riding on Appa, that she couldn't see. Katara's ridiculing voice came back to her.

"_The stars are beautiful tonight. Too bad you can't see them, __**Toph**__."_

She followed the old man as he looked for his 'view.' _But for some reason it's not bothering me much. Of course, he talks about it without the malice of a certain waterbender.  
_

She squatted as he brewed the tea, wanting to still keep her feet flat and 'aware.' She could feel the shape of the crude clay cups sitting on the ground.

He picked one up and poured. "Here is your tea." He handed it to her. "You seem a little too young to be traveling alone." He observed.

"_You_ seem a little too old." She shot back, goodwill suddenly evaporating at his implication.

He gave a rusty chuckle. "Perhaps I am."

"I know what you're thinking." She sighed a bit. "I look like I can't handle being by myself."

"I wasn't thinking that."

_Liar._

"You wouldn't even let me pour my own tea." She accused.

"I poured your _tea_ because I wanted to. And for no other reason."

_Oh. He meant that. Hmmm._

"People see me and think I'm weak. They want to take care of me. But I can take care of myself. _By_ myself." She finished adamantly.

"You sound like my nephew. Always thinking you need to do things on your own. Without anyone's support. There is nothing _wrong_ with letting people who _love_ you help you- Not that I _love_ you, I just met you."

She laughed, amused by his tone. "So where is your nephew?"

"I've been tracking him, actually."

_You sound so sad._ "Is he lost?"

"Yes, a little bit. His life has recently changed and he's going through very difficult times. He's trying to figure out who he is. And he ran away."

"So, now you're following him."

"I know he doesn't want me around right now. But, if he needs me, I'll be there."

"You're nephew is very lucky." She paused. "Even if he doesn't know it."

"_I know he doesn't want me around right now. But, if he needs me, I'll be there."_

_Maybe they don't want me around right now. But I should be there for them._

She set her teacup on the ground and rose slowly. "Thank you." She told him.

"My pleasure." he said warmly. "Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's true delights."

"No." She smiled. "Thank you for what you said. It helped me."

"I'm glad."

She shouldered her pack. "Oh, and about your nephew- maybe you should tell him you need _him_, too."

She turned and began casting her 'vision' outward, looking for her friends.

_They need me, and I need them. Thank you for helping me realize that.  
_


	7. Faces

**Faces**

Her mother's was the first face she knew.

That was before she could see.

She could, though, play with pebbles, sitting on the marble floor. She shifted the round stones with swirling motions of her tiny hands, and they clicked and clattered against each other. Then she would pick them up and make them float just inches above her palms, giggling.

Even in this simple pleasure, her mother watched her like a hawk. Her daughter could have her element to play with- but the pieces had to be perfectly smooth- no sharp edges. And if the girl brought any of the rocks to her mouth, as little children are wont to do, her mother would grasp her wrist firmly, quietly chastising her. Poppy Bei Fong loved her daughter's smiles. She loved watching her use her gift that obviously brought her so much joy. But she had to be guarded. At all times.

One night, when her mother carried her to bed, her filmy eyes drooping, instead of laying her daughter down she sat with her in her lap and asked, "Do you want to see me, little one?"

The raven-haired child perked up a little bit at her mother's inquiry. She did not quite know yet that she did not have the vision of her mother and father, that she was deprived of something, so the statement did not sound odd to her.

Her mother took her hands in hers. "Here. This is me, Toph." She pulled her fingers along her face. The girl understood and traced all the curves, her mother's narrow eyes and her well-manicured eyebrows, her nose, as round, smooth, and small as the pebbles but much softer. When she reached her lips her mother caught her hand again and kissed them. "Do you see, darling?"

"Uh-huh." Came the small, eager voice.

It took some convincing on the part of her mother to get her father to undergo the same scrutiny.

His skin was slightly drier. He had defined cheekbones, a strong, angular chin, and a tall, tapering nose. His features were firmer than her mother's. His small daughter found his mustache- an unexpected adornment. She stroked it all the way down- it was long, much longer than her own bangs at the time.

Everyone else who encountered her parents would distinguish them first by their differing complexions: her mother the white of a parasol noblewoman and her father the slightly darker complexion of a no-less-well-bred man who loved outdoor teas.

But these things were what their daughter knew about their faces.

Gradually she was allowed to use this vision less and less. It was not proper for her to 'see' her parents anymore. She was growing up into a young lady, and she would have to keep her hands to herself. The servants, uncomfortable, would not let her 'see' them either, much to her dismay. She grew restless and agitated and tried to throw fits, but always that firm grasp of her mother and harsh admonitions from her father stilled the little girl.

It was then that she went to the badgermoles, with their damp breath and tickling whiskers: they would let her see them. She could run her fingers through their coarse fur and touch their cold noses. But they had something else to show her. The towering animals with pointed peaks of shoulders told her that they were indeed like the mountains, and the mountains like them. The earth lived, too. It could tell her things.

This was a different sight she now had. She forgot temporarily about the first kind. Because her parents had grown distant. Her second parents had given her a new sight.

And so it went, that she sharpened this new vision, and the other was cast aside.

Then _they_ came.

He, with his dainty foosteps who disappeared like a whisper.

She, with her graceful movements that bended and flowed like her element.

He, with his comical slouching gait and gangly limbs.

In this way she knew them. She saw what they looked like.

But as they traveled, and their friendship deepened, she thought about it occasionally- perhaps she wanted to see them in the old way as well? Was that still "her?" Or did she want to leave it in the past, in order to be this new, tougher, more independent person?

The first time the old desire- and the old memory- was truly stoked was when her muscles were straining, bending energy waning as she scraped at the last of her strength. The huge stone Library was sinking into the sand.

Singular, direct thoughts cemented in her mind.

_She would not succumb to this._

She hadn't even seen their faces.

As she listened to the receding moans of the sky bison, she realized that no matter how much she hated being deprived of her element in flight, he reminded her of her second set of parents. "I'm sorry Appa." Came her raw lament.

It was no use.

Something that felt dangerously like despair stirred within. She couldn't keep this up. The entire structure sucked at her, weight bearing down. She wasn't thinking of how _she_ would be stranded in the desert. She was thinking of the three bodies- She couldn't even feel any of them, they were too far down. Even when they slipped into view below her, it only served to augment the feeling. Something two-legged, winged, and long-tailed pursued her friends, as large as her second parents, and not at all as benevolent. If it caught up to even _one_ of them, she would have to _watch._ The way her sight operated, she couldn't even look away, as that would entail dropping her precious burden and dooming the other two. She was an observer stuck in position, bearing witness to unfolding events she was powerless to change. She wanted to be down there, beside them, defending them. For the first time in a long time, she felt truly-

-helpless.

Then, though she knew they were climbing upwards through the air, towards her, they were gone from her sight again, and dread gripped her all the same.

The Avatar's landing should have given welcome relief. But they had still lost a member, and she had to recollect herself from the scare. She put hands to either side of her head, not even trusting herself to speak lest she start crying. That would be weak.

Her friends had made it out. But she knew that she could never ask the airbender to see his face, not until he had his animal guide safely back. He blamed her for losing him.

And then Sokka started hallucinating.

So she lay awake after the boys had gone to sleep, and then crept over to the older girl.

"Are you all right? Can you not fall asleep, Toph?" She whispered kindly to her. Her motherly tone threatened to bring back memories and stinging guilt for the woman she had left behind.

"Katara? Can I . . . see you?"

The waterbender propped herself up on an elbow at the odd statement. "What do you mean?"

Toph touched her own face lightly.

"Oh." Katara said, pausing. "Sure, Toph, if you want."

And silently she thought to herself that she couldn't see much in this desert. That her second sight was limited now. But her first sight was as clear as ever.

The first thing anyone else would notice about Katara was her striking blue eyes. But Toph could never know colors. She only knew that although Katara's voice had all the maternal tones, her own mother had the wide, round cheeks of a well-nourished aristocrat while Katara had the leaner build of a girl that had known surviving harsh winters and trekking across the world.

Toph had never really known hardship. She had been catered to by maids. The Earth Rumble provided her only entertainment, not real challenges. So in that dry, barren wasteland, she relied on the waterbender herself in a way as much as her body relied on the water she bent.

She came to understand that Katara had yet another sight that she and the others did not share in this Spiritforsaken place. She saw hope where they didn't. She had _determination_, as rock-hard as her own element. And she was going to keep them all together. Katara was her third mother. And she had a third kind of sight.

It was an even longer time after that before she got to see the boys' faces.

When she met a new voice, a girl who moved with the sure, solid step of a warrior, whose rising heart beat matched the Water Tribe boy's, she was filled with a roil of feelings heretofore unknown to her twelve-year-old mind.

And so she put off further her sight of him.

Aang was momentarily forgotten too, even when they finally rejoined with Appa. After the Earth King was reinstated, Katara read her a letter that said her first mother wanted to talk to her! And it sounded as if the smothering love and the choking protectiveness could recede. There was another wish, there, too. She went to the house, hoping against hope to see her mother's face again. Maybe, if she had missed her enough, the first sight would be allowed again? But what she encountered was not soft skin. It was a hard metallic cage.

And she once again had to turn away from thoughts of her first sight, and extend her second sight even further, to escape.

When she got back to the city, she was greeted by an old friend. She thought fleetingly of asking him, of knowing the countenance that had produced such wisdom. But time was short and there was a battle to be won.

Or . . . lost.

She was deprived of her second sight. With just a few quick jabs, the strange enemy girl had _taken away her second sight_. She was deprived of her first sight as well, but that was inconsequential compared to the closed off and locked up feeling she underwent as her bending was stripped from her. It reminded her of the bad days at home. The stifling hours of sitting still. Except now, she wasn't just pretending she couldn't bend. She _actually couldn't_. It was being truly blind. Helpless. _Again._

She vowed to herself never, _never_ to let that happen a second time.

She wrinkled the metal prison door with her grip and flung it aside with a vengeance. But she never got to play out that frustration. They had to flee.

The Earth Kingdom had fallen.

Even with her second sight, she had failed to protect her homeland.

And now her friend the Avatar lay in bed, light, happy voice gone.

The one small solace, the blessing she could count, was that, because she had a new dimension to her second sight, she could now see on the metal boat- where she would've been blind before. It did not change the rocking motion that unnerved her. It did not change the sloshing of the threatening and alien water all around. But it was something.

She went to Katara, after she had spent a week with the ailing boy, to talk with her in hushed tones, to try to help ease the burden of worry. The older girl had to strain to watch the chest rise and fall immeasurably. The younger girl had to strain to listen to his wisps of breath.

"You should see him now." Katara told her quietly. "He won't mind." She teased.

"I will see him when he's awake. And he will wake up."

And eventually, after weeks of waiting and hoping, he did.

It was not until the older boy went to train with the sword master and the three benders were left alone and with little to do, that Katara remembered her entreaty to the girl. "Toph, do you want to see Aang now?"

"_See_ me?" He questioned.

Katara nodded and stepped to him, moving her hands across his cheeks. "Like this."

"Oh. Okay." His voice was high and squeaky at her touch and the earthbender smirked at his erratic heartbeat.

Toph found a face almost like her own in Aang, the other younger member of the group. His face was slightly bigger, and his small pointed chin extended a little more than hers. His ears were _definitely_ bigger. She moved her hands up and down his forehead, knowing there was an arrow, because everyone talked about it, but . . .

It was all just skin to her.

Tattoo ink was embedded in the second layer of skin, under the first.

"Here." He took her hand. "It looks like this." He guided her single index finger, outlining the three points and two perpendicular angles. She caught only a few subtle changes, where minuscule needle scars had healed over. She would never have been able to discern the overall shape on her own.

The last member unseen gave her a metal that was pliable under her hand, not like the stiff, resistant material she was used to.

She knew the instant she needed to ask him. The right moment.

"I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly, I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like."

Her breath caught slightly. Not remember your own mother's face? How limited could this 'real' sight be? Even though she hadn't 'seen' her mother in years, she could recall the shape and the feel of her. Well, she _liked_ to think that she could remember it mostly . . .

"It really seems like, my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there, and now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture."

Toph gave her answer immediately, something she had always thought. "The truth is, sometimes Katara does act motherly, but that's not always a bad thing. She's compassionate and kind, and she actually cares about me. You know, the real me. That's more than my own mom." Because she would no longer even allow her to see her in her first sight. She would not understand her second sight, either, never accept it, would she? But Katara knows both.

Even as the words were out of her mouth, she thought again of the torn hopes at Ba Sing Se, and wonders if she could ever risk going home only to have her real hopes of reconciliation dashed.

Suddenly snapping attention back to her third mother, she punches him in the shoulder. "Don't _ever_ tell her I said any of this."

"Hey, my lips are sealed."

He makes a motion to get up, but she takes hold of his hand. "Sokka, I was wondering . . . if I could look at your face."

He blinks at her. "_Look_ at? Are you playing mind games with me again?" he asks, wary of the blind girl's frequent teasing.

She can't help but laugh. She runs her palms across her own face. "This way, Genius."

"Oh, well . . ." he swallows nervously. "All right."

He flinches as the hands touch him. After all, they have routinely crushed boulders twice his size. She cups his chin and clenched jaw.

"Relax, Snoozles." She says, chuckling lightly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She has to admit, she doesn't see much resemblance between the two Water Tribe siblings, as anyone else might. Sokka's face is taller and longer- simply comprised of different shapes. She thinks about what she likes about the boy- how he can go from being awkward to glib in a moment, how she had always found something humorous even in his gait. She briefly wonders if he could ever see her as . . . as something other than a friend. But then she remembers the other girl and swiftly pulls her hands away. "Thank you." She tells him.

"No problem." He is much more at ease now, unaware of her inner conflict. Their states of agitation are reversed.

Now she has completed her mission. Or so she thinks.

There comes a new heartbeat among them, and a new face. And she is surprised that the boy's words are sincere when he says he wants to join them, even though he is the Fire Lord's son.

She does not have to come to him. He comes to her, asking forgiveness for burning her feet. She says she will grant him pardon if he lets her look at him. Her second sight tells her he is anxious about her request for first sight. But he accepts.

She had never been burned before now. But she knows, that the glassy smooth wrinkled scar tissue is speaking of pain much more intense than the glancing injury of her soles. She fingers his half-sized ear, and feels the skin stretched more thinly over one cheekbone than the other, the absence of one eyebrow. She asks if he will tell them the story. Under her fingers the tiny facial muscles tighten the already taut skin further, but he breaths a quiet acquiescence, "All right." And they release.

Later, she asks him about his uncle and he tells her he has broken out of his prison.

"All the bars were bent back with the heat," he says.

At this she pulls out her meteor bracelet and begins to mold it. "Metal goes like this when it's heated, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Sort of." He peers at the strange substance curiously.

When they succeed in seeking out the man who peeled back his confining metal ceiling like a blooming Lotus, the child sits outside and listens to the reunion of the prince and general, child and parent, with a well-attuned ear and an aching heart.

In broken tones, she had confided to her third mother, _"__I try not to think about it, but when I left, I probably really hurt them."_

And now she hears the boy, who she knows was deathly afraid of his uncle's rejection after hurting him. "I know you must have mixed feelings about seeing me. But I want you to know, I'm so, so sorry . . ."

She knows she will have to repeat similar words soon.

And for a moment, when she is hanging for her life, dangling off the side of an airship, she cries because her parents will never be able to see their little girl again. She blames herself for taking their only daughter away from them.

That moment seems to last an agonizing eternity.

But miraculously, she lives to reconnect with her native element. And then she thinks of going home.

At the tea shop in Ba Sing Se, she takes the old man aside after he is done playing his tsungi horn and asks to see him. Asks to hear his wisdom. How does she return to her parents?

She runs her hands across his broad wrinkled brow, his bushy eyebrows and beard, his wide nose. And then he talks to her in his creaky, wizened voice.

She thinks of all the faces in the tea shop. About how they will be spreading to the far corners of the world. The memory of all of them will stay under her fingers. And she knows she will 'see' them all in every way again- and see how they have changed.

But for now, the twelve-year-old sets a course for Gaoling. For home.

Upon entering the house, her mother rushes to her, caressing her daughter's long absent face as if _she_ were the one who was blind.

Toph Bei Fong had seen many faces now. Faces she would hold dear.

But her mother's was the first face she knew.

When the little blind girl finally sees her mother's face again, the pads of her fingers are damp, because it is streaked with relieved and joyful tears.


	8. The Library: Epilogue

_**Author's Note: Let it be pointed out here that this is an entirely** different** personality and event interpretation than appears in my fanfic, "What Meets the Eye." I wrote this much earlier than the other. Ironically, though, the "second" Wan Shi Tong of that story might be more like the one that appears on the show- I'll leave that for you to form an opinion on. I considered taking this down, but decided to leave it. I like Wan way too much to deny him any sort of "screentime." XDDD**_

_**Some funny sidethoughts:**_

_**If Wan Shi Tong's library is buried in the desert, shouldn't he be a Burrowing Owl instead of a Barn Owl?  
**_

_**'Owls' although a symbol for wisdom, are in real life not very intelligent at all. Ravens, on the other hand . . .  
**_

_***Wan promptly pecks my eyes out for my insolence***_

_**Here are a few things you need to remember from this episode:**_

_**Zei shooed away sandbenders angrily from Appa before the Gaang set out for the Library, as if he **expected** them to try and steal him.**_

_**Aang's ability to remove someone's bending is something he has never done before, even in past lives. (okay, so that wasn't in the episode, but remember it anyway. . .)**_

_**Recall WHY Wan Shi Tong was enraged- and ask yourself what the professor must think about this . . . ?**_

* * *

**The Library: Epilogue**

Toph has prevented the Gaang's demise at the hands (well, wings, talons, whatever) of Wan Shi Tong.

But what happens to Professor Zei?

_It turns out Toph was not the only rescuer of the day._

_In fact, she was the rescuee._

Zei was extremely lucky that he landed on sand, and not bone-breaking stone.

The whole building had given a swift downward lurch, and he had been hurled into the air, or, more accurately, the floor had been pulled right out from under him. He was now face down on his stomach, lying in one of the several piles of sand that had leaked into the building when it began to sink. He lifted himself to his elbows and tried to clear all the sand out of his eyes, spitting some out of his mouth as well. He was dazed, but for the most part unhurt.

But both the luck, and the being unhurt was about to change, he suddenly thought as he spied a large black heap stirring several yards away through his itchy vision.

The Knowledge Spirit, he was sure, had been struck twice now, once by the Water Tribe boy, and just now again when the building lurched. Somehow, he figured, that hadn't been the great owl's intentional doing. Had the Avatar been resisting or influencing his powers over the library? No doubt he was doubly angry now that he had been injured.

Even as the higher-order questions and reasoning budded within him, they took a subordinate place to the_ primal_ jolt of _need to survive_ that hit him when the huge predator got to his feet with a loud groan. Even facing away, even though he shook himself free of sand a little clumsily, he was a fearsome sight. Zei didn't have time to reflect on the fact that the well-placed fear was just catching up with him- he had previously stood in the owl's path in an impulse effort to try to stop his destructive ravaging of the library.

Blinking at the sand still in his eyes, the professor quickly tried to scramble to his feet, but soon found that he was a little more shaken than he had formerly anticipated. His limbs responded sluggishly and he sprawled again.

Wan Shi Tong was advancing on him quickly, claws skittering on the stone, feather-cloak sweeping and scattering piles of errant sand.

Professor Zei couldn't tell if the Spirit was still in his dragon form- and truthfully he couldn't look up and find out, either. The _need to move_ had abruptly been replaced by _can't move- too terrified_. The deadly talons drew closer. "Please, Great Spirit, I o-only wish to stay-" he could hardly get the words out. The hope behind them was halfhearted. He knew when he had refused the Water Tribe boy's admonishment to escape with the kids that he had probably forfeit his life. He couldn't say he completely regretted the decision, though. It would have been heartbreak in every sense of the word- to go back to Ba Sing Se University, to tell his colleagues that he had found the Library, but that they could not retrace his path and find it for themselves- they would have brushed it off as ravings borne of one two many hot treks through the Si Wong. He was just sun-touched, they would say. And he would have to carry the memory of barely dipping his toes into the rich reservoir of history when all he wanted to do was plunge in headfirst. He guessed he would just have to settle for drowning.

He was glad the children had escaped, at least.

He closed his eyes, bracing for the blow.

But there was nothing. The sound of movement stopped.

"I'm not going to harm you."

Zei shot his head up in surprise and he met the great owl's eyes, which were unexpectedly close. They were dark and deep, yes, but filled not with hatred but infinite understanding and wisdom. Zei couldn't speak for several minutes, transfixed.

He used those minutes to fully process the past hour, right up to that point. So many extremities were playing out- the fulfillment of his lifelong dream, it crashing down around him- quite literally. This pendulum of extremes, swinging wildly, coupled with the more basic pendulum of _survive_ and _not going to survive_ that had subsided mere moments before was leaving him feeling very drained. When he could finally look away, he sat back and turned his attention to the damage of the library around them, replaying everything his three young companions and the owl had said. He closed his eyes again and bowed his head, resting his hands on his crossed knees. "Maybe you should do away with me, anyway."

Wan Shi Tong ruffled his feathers. "And why would that be, Professor?"

Zei was silent for a moment. "To see your library in ruins-" he looked around at the toppled bookshelves- "and to know that the Avatar is corrupt- I would rather not live in this world any more."

Wan Shi Tong spread his wings slowly. "Fear not for my collection, Professor." Zei looked around and saw the shelves raise themselves, and books lifting from the floor and setting themselves back in their places. The professor beamed at the sight, but his countenance quickly fell again as he remembered his second statement. "Now, why do you think the Avatar has been corrupted?" Wan Shi Tong asked.

"Because I do not question your judgment." Zei replied. "If you drove out the Avatar because he used your knowledge for evil purposes, then it must be so." He finished somberly.

Wan Shi Tong folded his wings. "Your observations and conclusions are quite astute Professor, even though they aren't true."

Zei looked up at the spirit's heart-shaped face in again.

"What?"

"It is true that I drove out the Avatar. I even said that he was following the path of evil. However, I lied."

Zei blinked in disbelief.

"Just because I am an all-knowing spirit-being does not mean I always mean what I say."

The giant bird cocked his head. "And now another question is at the threshold of your mind." He said. "You wonder why I must ask what you are thinking if I am all-knowing."

The professor cringed, believing he had shown disrespect.

"No, it is a valid question." Wan Shi Tong admitted. "I find it hard to communicate with humans when I simply answer what they are thinking. It disconcerts them, and clouds their minds with unease. Also, you are notorious for switching your attention very quickly." He blinked. "It is hard to address something you were thinking a minute ago when you are thinking something else now."

The professor smiled a bit. "Then it must be very redundant for you."

Wan Shi Tong gave another rumbling chuckle. "It can be, yes, but not always." His eyes glittered a little, but just as suddenly they went dull again. "You still wonder why I attacked the Avatar if he did no wrong." He said seriously.

"Yes."

"You must understand that the Avatar is constantly learning, and sometimes for teaching to become ingrained-" his neck elongated as he turned back into his serpentine form- "it must be dramatic." The professor waited, knowing there was more.

"The Avatar has more power and more knowledge than every person he comes into contact with- he may not be aware of it all the time, but it is nonetheless true. What I did today was a reminder not to abuse his abilities. And I have a good idea that my advice will guide him in the future." He paused. "Yes, I can see some of the future," responding to the professor's wandering mind. "The Avatar thought about everything I said to him today. I sense that he will use my advice to seek out knowledge that he has not heretofore known, not even in his past lives."

Several moments passed.

"I was very convincing, wasn't I?" Wan Shi Tong asked.

"What?"

"I must keep up my reputation as a wrathful Spirit. It's not every day I get to chase terrified mortals."

The professor was momentarily floored again. Was the Spirit . . ._ joking_ with him? He laughed nervously.

The great black figure sighed. "But my actions have consequences." He looked up at the tower where the Avatar and his friends had escaped and shrunk down to his owl form again as he gazed. He turned back to the professor, extended a wing and touched a long flight feather to his forehead. The professor saw the children, wandering through the emptiness, the air bison missing. He absorbed the knowledge of what had happened and jumped up. "Can we help them?" he asked.

"They will be all right." Wan Shi Tong murmured soothingly. "They have several rough days ahead of them, but it was necessary."

Zei clenched his fists, thinking of the children and the unforgiving wasteland that he himself had traversed so many times.

"_Did you know this would happen?_" He demanded, because he had absorbed a bit of Wan Shi Tong's guilt at distracting the little earthbending girl with the sinking building. He thought too late that maybe he was being too bold to the powerful entity.

A small thrill of fear went through him yet again as Wan Shi Tong leaned down closer, voice stern. "I did not know that this precise thing would happen, but I _did _foresee what would happen if I _hadn't_ hurried them out my library."

He touched his feather to the professor again, and a new vision swallowed him: The earthbender was trying to intervene and fight for the bison, but she was unable to use the sand, unable to defend herself. Both she and the animal were being dragged away and-

A sick feeling welled up within him as the almost-real feeling event went on. He was acquainted with the active slave trade and didn't like to think of what the girl's somewhat impertinent attitude would bring out in her captors. His worst fears were beginning to be confirmed-

When he could stand no more he jerked backwards and fell to the floor, tears streaming.

"T-that didn't happen, r-right?" he asked weakly, wanting to make sure.

"No, it was only an alternate future." Wan Shi Tong answered.

"I knew the sandbenders were scum." The mortal said vehemently.

"Power is corruptive to anyone. The ability to do wrong . . . is enticing to even those with the strongest wills." Wan Shi Tong replied gravely. "The Avatar will have to face this soon, and over and over. He will have to overcome the anger you are feeling now." The professor still glared.

"Actions among the depraved are often because they are deprived." Wan Shi Tong's voice radiated with true compassion for the first time as he tried to cut through Zei's hatred. "I must show you-" He reached out his wing tip, but the professor brushed it away. "No! No more."

"You are an anthropologist, and yet you will not accept this knowledge?"

"It's not knowledge if it hasn't happened! And besides," he closed his eyes and crossed his arms, "_I do not want to learn about such people_."

"It has happened a million times, in a million civilizations, in a million forms- and to understand the reasons why is as important as knowing it happened, or can happen."

The professor then looked warily into his ebony eyes one last time. He was strangely comforted by the expressionless face.

"I can teach you the ways of men, the ways of spirits. But you have to accept the truth, the bad with the good. I can give you the knowledge you would accrue after ages of leafing through all the musty pages of my vast collection, the wisdom for which you have so desperately scoured this desert. Do you truly wish to stay here for an eternity?"

The professor remembered his words. He thought of all he had left behind to find this library, no, to find this Spirit. Everything he had done and not done.

"Teach me."


	9. Resistance

**Resistance**

Dark AU

The Avatar was captured by Prince Zuko, along with his two Southern companions, and the banished heir was re-instated as next in line for the throne.

The North Pole fell to the Moonslayer. The moon itself was restored, but he retained his title nonetheless, because all of the children of the Moon were duly subjugated, along with the last waterbender of the south, ensuring that the Avatar Cycle would not see another free Avatar after the boy died of old age. Rumors of a rogue waterbender in the Fire Nation circulated, but most dismissed the horrible stories as myth.

A witch? Yeah right.

Ba Sing Se succumbed to the onslaught of the Fire Nation's technology, the great Drill.

The Phoenix King reigned supreme over the scorched lands, his wings extending across the entire world.

Back at the nest, his female chick attempted to slay his weaker offspring, but the boy escaped. No one knows if he will join the rebels or simply go into hiding, living as an ordinary Fire Nation citizen.

It has been three years since then.

The tales of the witch have long since been confirmed by blood.

But this is a younger witch, though, that now stalks the Fire Nation in secret, escaped from her prison so much like her predecessor.

Strangely fitting how the substance the waterbender manipulates every month is red, the signature color of the very Nation she loathes.

And despite the firebird's bold and devastating flight, small pockets of resistance stubbornly remain in the Earth Kingdom.

The fire whiskey was flowing amply that night after a particularly hard week's march. The division had finally reached its destination to reinforce Fire Nation troops in the Southern Earth Kingdom. Stories of the decimation were soon flying around faster than hawks, faster than the fabled phoenixes. Another threat was rising.

Yet another myth gone horribly, horribly true.

"Some say she was sired by a Spirit," a soldier whispered fearfully.

Another had not removed his mask, his husky voice floating from the unmoving face.

"The very ground opens and men are swallowed up by the maw of the Earth at her command."

"She senses her enemies approach from miles away," A grisly old general grated.

"She appears on the battlefield like a young white-clad siren."

"Her raven black hair billows around her."

"The Sightless Scourge."


	10. Protection

**Author's Note: One of the things that bother people about Toph's lack of character resolution is that she never ended up paired with anyone. I personally think that her issues with her parents take precedent over "not having a boyfriend." :P**

**That said, my favorite Avatar pairing is Toko. So expect to see some of Toph and Zuko in this series. But the interactions will be platonic (given the age difference), unless they are aged. Other pairings with her will probably sneak their way into the Chronicles, too. **

**I am working on trying to write a satisfactory interaction between Toph and the next Water Avatar, Korra, for the new miniseries Nickelodeon is releasing.**

**Anyway, I've gone back and collected all the themes for the three Toko weeks that have passed, and I might write a few entries with the prompts if inspiration hits. (Many of the ideas sparked may play out in my other story, What Meets the Eye, instead.) **

**They are as follows:**

**2008, sponsored by LengTu on DeviantArt**

**1. Nobility**

**2. Burned**

**3. Tea**

**4. Affection**

**5. Field Trip**

**6. Protection**

**7. Wanted**

**2009, sponsored by WithinOurTemptaion on DeviantArt**

**1. Gambling**

**2. Beach**

**3. Hair Piece**

**4. Boat**

**5. Darkness**

**6. Heat**

**7. Scars**

**2010, sponsored by ?**

**1. Understanding**

**2. Eyes**

**3. Eruption**

**4. Family**

**5. Bath**

**6. Strength**

**7. Silence**

**2011, sponsored by Toko-fans and chimera-99 on DA**

**1. Firework**

**2. Sand**

**3. Foreign **

**4. Mirror**

**5. Innocence**

**6. Waiting**

**7. Can You Hear Me? **

**2012, sponsored by the same ^**

**1. Trouble**

**2. Duck**

**3. Teamwork**

**4. Exile**

**5. Payback**

**6. Drink**

**7. Treasure**

**2013**

**1. Storm**

**2. Fairytale**

**3. Compromise**

**4. Shield**

**5. Tease**

**6. AU**

**7. Daybreak**

**Today, I will use "Protection" . . . **

* * *

"You might have everyone else here buying your "_transformation."_ But you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something _right now_. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang . . . and you won't have to worry about your _destiny_ anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends right then and there. _Permanently_."

Zuko was left speechless as Katara left his "room."

Well, what reaction did he expect, anyway?

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"She is such a drama queen."

He jumped at the new voice.

"But don't think for one second that she doesn't mean that, Sparky." Toph continued nonchalantly as she stood in the doorway. "Every word was only too true." She smiled. "But don't worry. I'll keep an eye on her."

Zuko didn't reply.

"Keep an _eye_ on her?" The blind girl repeated emphatically, smile widening. "What, you don't do jokes?"

"I just ran away from the home I worked for three years to return to, realized my destiny was the opposite of what I always to believed it to be, and just got threatened by a homicidal waterbender. So no, I don't do jokes right now."

"Sheesh." Toph shrugged. "With me, Sparky, you have nothing to worry about." She frowned. "What happened, anyway, to make her so mad?"

"She and I were locked up together at Ba Sing Se. And well . . . she offered to heal my scar with some sort of spirit water-"

"The stuff she used on Aang?" Toph was suddenly very attentive.

"That's how she brought him back, then . . ." Zuko mused. "I thought so."

Toph was silent for a moment. "Well, the important thing is that you're here, and you're going to teach Twinkles firebending. It is unfortunate that the _healer_ of the group is the one who wants to murder you." She commented through a smirk. "But Queeny is no match for me."

Zuko watched her leave, not sure if he felt reassured.

* * *

As Zuko demonstrated to Aang the next day, Katara knelt behind a collapsed pillar and watched his every move like a dragon-hawk. Sokka strode up to the boys with an apple and finished it as Zuko made tiny bursts of fire. They looked rather smaller than usual. Was he just playing it safe because of her threat? Or might he be luring the monk into a false sense of security?

Aang was sitting way too close to Zuko for Katara's taste. "He trusts him too much." She hissed to herself.

"You make a habit of spying on boys, Katara?" Toph joked behind her. She leapt to her feet in surprise. The earthbender was impossibly good at sneaking around. Having extremely accurate hearing must have attuned the little girl to move with little noise.

"Toph, I am _so _not in the mood." Katara bit back.

"Obviously." She replied cooly. "What difference should that make to me?"

Katara growled in annoyance. "You trust him, too! Sokka told me that his sister lied to you without your being able to tell! What makes you think her brother doesn't have the same ability?"

Toph shook her head. "Look, Katara, I'm not sure I could explain that to you if I tried. I haven't encountered anyone like Azula. Her heartrate and blood pressure didn't spike when we entered her chamber, or when we were attacking her. No fear that I could detect at all. I don't think it was specifically to do with lying or not: I think she just-"

"She's a freak." Katara said smugly. "And so is her brother."

"For all I know, there are exercises that you can do to train your body not to have reactions." Toph said. "She might be so fearless that she never doubts herself." Toph chuckled. "That's something I could admire."

Katara shot her a venomous look, which for obvious reasons had no effect. "Admire? Are you serious?"

"No." Toph teased. "Thus the chuckling." She still enjoyed getting under Katara's skin, even when she was trying to ward her off of a pursuit of action.

'Whatever." Katara resumed her surveillance of pupil and master. Sokka had wandered off somewhere.

"If Zuko had been lying about helping us, his heartbeat would have been all over the place." Toph stated flatly. "I know this because he's more of a nervous wreck than all of you combined." she finished seriously.

* * *

That night at dinner, Zuko cleared his throat and announced, "Listen everybody; I've got some pretty bad news. I've lost my stuff."

Toph raised her arms. "Don't look at me. I didn't touch your stuff." The Runaway said innocently.

"I'm talking about my firebending. It's gone."

Katara laughed so loud that everyone, including The Duke, Haru, and Teo, stared at her.

**"**I'm sorry. I'm just laughing at the irony. You know- how it would have been nice for us if you lost your firebending a long time ago."

"Well it's not lost. It's just weaker for some reason." Zuko corrected dejectedly.

**"**Maybe you're just not as _good_ as you think you are. " Katara retorted.

**"**Ouch." Toph said. She had to appreciate good comebacks, even if they did come from the opposing party.

* * *

One badgermole backstory later, Zuko had taken into consideration Toph's suggestion that they find the "original source" of firebending.

The group cleaned up after dinner, and he sat next to her. "You really did learn from badgermoles?" He asked. "No master at all?"

"Not really. My parents set me up with an excuse for an earthbender but he had orders not to teach me past the basics."

Zuko actually smiled a little to himself as he remembered his duel with Zhao. "The basics can do a lot more for you than you'd think."

Toph shrugged. "I'll take your word for it."

"Not my word. Not technically. My uncle's."

Toph smiled reminiscently at the mention of the old man.

Aang strode up to them purposefully and said, "Well, I'm not going to get by with the basics, Zuko." He was in one of his rare intense moods, where the weight of the world pressed down a little harder than normal. "We need to make plans about going to- what did you call it? The Sun Warriors settlement?"

Zuko nodded. "We'll get everyone to head out tomorrow."

"Appa can't carry everyone." Aang pointed out. "We had to walk part of the way here."

"Well, I don't have to go." Toph stretched and yawned. "The less flying the better for me. And besides, I weigh him down, don't I, Aang?"

Aang laughed awkwardly as he remembered his insult to Toph when she had first joined the Gaang.

"_If there's anyone to blame, it's you! You're always talking about how you carry your own weight, but you're not! He is! Appa's carrying your weight! He never had a problem flying when it was just the three of us!"_

The airbender was glad that they were on good enough terms again to be able to joke about it. After all, he had also given her a hard time when Appa was stolen, yelling at her for being unable to stop the sandbenders. The triangle between the girl, boy, and bison had been a tumultuous one.

He pulled himself out of his reflection and said to Zuko, "It will be faster if only we go."

"There's no way Katara will let us go alone. She at least has to come." Zuko said darkly.

"You, Aang, and Katara? That's going to be ten kinds of awkward." Toph said incredulously. Then she smiled deviously. "Besides, what's to keep you from sneaking off in the morning? You and Aang are always awake first, way before Snoozles and Sister Snoozles."

"I'm pretty sure than has something to do with being a firebender." Zuko interjected. "Rising with the sun."

"So then you're set." Toph said matter-of-factly.

"I'll handle Ice Princess."

* * *

"THEY DID WHAT?!" Katara shouted.

"They took my advice and went to the see if they could find any mystical spirit mumbo-jumbo at an ancient temple." Toph replied indifferently. "Really, Katara, if you didn't sleep so late, you would know this stuff."

"And you just let them leave?!" Katara yelled. She rushed over to her brother, who was still in his sleeping bag and began to shake him. "Sokka! Sokka! Do you still know where that traitor's war balloon is? We have to go after them!"

Suddely the ground moved under her and she was whisked away from the somnolently grumbling heap that was Sokka.

"Leave Captain Boomerang be." Toph said as she finished the earthbending movement. "He's going to be fine, Katara."

"Don't lecture me, Toph! Zuko betrayed my trust, and he'll do the same to Aang!"

"Will you just calm down!" Toph yelled back. "This is way too much, even for you!"

Katara raised her arms and the nearby fountain emptied its contents into the air. "Get out of my way, Toph."

"No." the stubborn earthbender replied, sinking into a stance.

Katara seemed taken aback by the response. "I don't believe this. You're actually going to _fight _for him?"

"If you make me, yes." Toph snapped.

"Whadderya fienen abothissearrly?" Came Sokka's nearly incomprehensible complaint came from behind Toph.

Katara ignored him. "You encouraged them to do this, didn't you?' She growled, the water behind her wavering. "How could you do that to Aang, Toph?"

The earthbender's words slowed, "Do you really think I would put Aang in any danger on purpose? He's my friend, too, you know, Katara."

Katara blinked. The water sank a fraction.

"If I thought there were any chance that he wouldn't come back," Toph continued, "do you think I would've gone along with it?"

There was a long pause.

The water fell with a loud splash as Katara's fists clenched at her sides. "We don't know where they went." She said acridly. "We'd be riding through the Fire Nation aimlessly. That's the reason we won't go." She couldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that she got through to her.

Toph, however, was happy with any measure of victory. "Will you promise me that when they get back-"

"_**If**_ they get back-" the waterbender disagreed-

"_**When**_ they get back," Toph repeated, "that you won't attack Zuko?"

Katara turned her head to the side. "Fine."

* * *

Life was good.

The tension between Katara and Zuko had finally been dissipated by her own field trip with him. Toph could read it in their relaxed body language and their now un-strained voices.

At the moment she was enjoying the warm sunlight of Ember Island on her back. She cracked her knuckles as she examined Aang's sand sculpture of Appa. "Not bad, baldy. But I've been working on my sandbending. You're gonna love this."

She pulled up a mental image of Ba Sing Se, one that had been mapped by months and months of residence there, and reached out into the sand around her to mold it to its form.

"Whoooooa." Aang leaned in over her creation. "Wow, you even made a little Earth King and Bosco."

The peace didn't last, however.

She was in the midst of laughing about Sokka's attempt to make Suki out of sand, she felt Zuko pounding towards them on the dunes.

Even she was caught by surprise when he shattered the "sculpture" in question with a burst of flame.

"What are you doing?!" Aang cried.

**"**Teaching you a lesson!" Zuko yelled in irritation.

Toph hadn't been able to pick up on his agitated state because of the sand. Her "vision" was still limited by it. Aang and Zuko appeared and reappeared in her "sight" as they leapt in the air. When their forms retreated off of the beach, she couldn't sense them at all.

She did, however, "see" Katara as she touched ground from surfing on the water, where she had been invisible. "What happened?"

"Zuko's gone crazy!" Sokka whined. "I made a sand sculpture of Suki and he destroyed it!" He paused. "Oh, and he's attacking Aang." Well, he certainly didn't seem too concerned.

Katara's whole form went rigid and-

_Was that the sound of ice hardening?_

Katara sprinted down the beach back towards the house where faint explosions could be heard, obviously towing some sort of waterbended spears along with her.

Toph didn't know how to propel herself on sand the way she did with more solid earth, and she didn't have time to figure it out. So she ran. She ran flat out. "Katara! Wait!"

The instant her foot fell on good dirt, she pinpointed the Katara midstride and threw up a wall in front of her. When the waterbender braked in surprise she sank her into the partially sandy substance, to her waist so she wouldn't strain her knees trying to go forward.

She lost control of the water and Toph felt it soak into her element surrounding her. "Toph! Let me out!" She twisted back and forth.

"Katara, I'm not letting you go charging in there-"

"Fine, fine." Katara took a deep breath, becoming still. "I'm sorry. Really. I overreacted."

Toph hesitated.

"I understand that you see something in him, Toph." Katara admitted. "You proved that to me. And I really have forgiven him."

Toph's feet told her that two sets of nonbender footsteps were catching up with them.

"Can I at least yell at him?" The waterbender asked facetiously.

Toph pulled her back out. "Yeah."


	11. Stories, Part I

_**To give you fair warning, stylistically this is very 'stream of consciousness.' But that makes **__sense __**for addressing personal demons . . . right? **_

_**The POV and the tense and everything ran all **__over__** the place. I wrote all of it in such a frenzy, and it's hard to explain. It's rough, like Toph. **_

_**You don't have to dig very hard to see Taang or Toko or what-have-you, but I'd prefer you keep the shipping goggles**__ off__** for this one. There's more important stuff going on than that.**_

_**After so much writer's block it's like lightning struck or an avalanche fell or floodgates opened or any number of other appropriate "element" metaphors.**_

_**I apologize for the mess. Profusely.**_

**Stories, Part I**

The boys and I are gambling- or rather _swindling_, since we aren't _actually_ taking _chances_ or _risking _anything, duh!- our way through this Fire Nation town with abandon.

Oh Sweet Spirits, get a _load_ of those _chumps!_

This is a _hoot!_

Aang, at my suggestion, attempts to use airbending to imitate my moving the various dice to the desired numbers- no one can _see_ his bending after all. He makes his itty bitty circles once, twice, three times. It briefly appeases the angered crowd to see us lose a few times.

But then he's successful some, and we three go back to camp. Katara is off stewing somewhere. And by that I mean "sulking," not "making stew" like a cook or a _mom_. Ha _**ha!**_ We plop down on the volcanic, slightly sooty earth laughing until we can't even breathe in his element properly. Aang, the goody-two-shoes finally pulls something off!

He insists that he's _always_ been up for a little mischief, and Sokka says 'yeah, sure' with sarcasm, a subtype of lie that I'm _more_ than familiar with, due to my particular experiences growing up.

Aang repeats himself. Okay, okay, Sokka agrees. It's true. Aang's gotten them in more _trouble_ than he'd care to recall because of his _antics _and _games_ and now the shoe is on the other foot and Aang is protesting his innocence. It's not as bad as all _that!_ Honestly!

The good-natured argument, or game, really, because they both know it's a joke, goes in circles around me and I just smile. My jaw and cheeks are _cramped _and _painful_ from smiling so wide. This is _the life._

Who knew? You can't say Aang and I have a _ton _in common. Though- That causes something to occur to me as I'm huffing and winding down from the excitement of friendship and debauchery- _What,_ don't think I use words like _debauchery?_ As _if._ I was homeschooled by the best tutors money can _buy._

"Hey, Aang, how old were you when you earned your master tattoos?"

His heart does this funny little lurch and I know he's remembering people who are one hundred years gone and a time when the world wasn't so "_completely _crazy" as he sometimes puts it- unbalanced- and I suddenly feel a load of guilt for ruining the awesome moment so _thoroughly._

See, I was _reining_ champion at twelve years old. That means I _won _the title at _eleven_. And to call the years it took to get there an uphill battle would be an understatement of mountainous magnitude.

Problem is, ask Aang any personal questions and he's likely to get quiet and subdued while he answers. I prefer the fun, energetic side of him myself, though the Water Tribe duo took me aside early on and told me not to be shy if I'm curious. I replied that I'm never shy about _anything._

It was a lie, looking back on it, of course, but, whatever, close enough. Hyperboles are another subtype of lie that don't always explicitly show up on my radar.

. . . Katara has frequently told Aang, it helps, talking about it.

I wasn't so sure he completely agreed with her, 'cause he avoids things so much in true airbender fashion, but lately, he's been pretty okay.

I just wanted to know how old Aang was when he earned _his_ title of Master_._

There was an Earth Rumbler who had a tattoo, too . . .

"It was just after my twelfth birthday." Aang said. His birthday is at the very beginning of autumn, the season most Air Nomads come into this world. Ugh. Sozin's Comet. What a birthday present, right? "Why?" he asked.

I didn't want to explain myself. " . . . I just wondered, is all." I lied evasively. I was _younger _when I accomplished a comparable- But the satisfaction is underwhelming. I don't think it was worth losing the moment. Or hurting him.

Luckily, soon enough, we three musketeers are back to our _present _story.

HA! So many of their hearts feel like they've just run a race. Serves you _right_ for running a rigged _ratsnake_ race!

. . . They called me a cheater in the Earth Rumble when I wouldn't face opponents head on. When I used my own, _invented _techniques and style. When I used minimal force and well placed timing to take down my opponents, instead of strength. They nicknamed me things like Hoodwink and Deceiver.

No. "Nickname" is really too _friendly_ a term.

Finally Xin Fu settled on Bandit. Guess he thought he was _clever_ with the alliteration and the stupid. vindictive. constant. reminder.

You are _blind._

* * *

In one of her first matches, the young girl's call is not entirely unanticipated. Her out of the blue arrival at the ring was what was unexpected.

I forfeit!

You can't do that.

She _has_ to. She can't go home with an _injury_. Even a _minor_ one. They can't know.

That's, right, run away! The _Runaway! _

Hoodwink! You're as _small_ as a _wink!_ The crowd's 'boos' assault her hearing.

You're all ignorant anyway! You _thickheads_ wouldn't understand even if I _did _explain!

She voices none of that aloud. What she _says_ is, "I don't care about your dumb _rules!_ I'll do what I _want!_"

. . . could I even explain? . . .

. . . do I even _understand_ it myself? . . .

I have a _secret _to keep.

The badgermoles that they use to clear off the ring after each round aren't like _her _teachers. They're bred to be small, several generations _sculpted_ and _forged_ and _shaped_ and _molded_ to be naturally domesticated and docile. She likes them, all the same. They smell like moonpeach shampoo, and their fur is glossy and combed. But their moist noses and tickly whiskers that brush her face are the same, at least. They're young, about eight feet tall, because a regular, untamed, _full-grown_ badgermole would have trouble even turning _around_ on the ring, and are more unruly anyway. Hippo, the name of another contender, likes them too, but doesn't speak to her much. He doesn't talk much in general. He does say, however, that she uses funny fancy words.

The others notice too. To fit in she desperately modifies her unusually wide vocabulary for her age, borne of endless days cooped up with some servant reading to her instead of "wasting time" going to school. She has to at first consciously pick short terms- none over three syllables, for a start. She _convinces_ herself she **didn't** like any of the stories, histories **or** subjects _anyway_.

She _didn't._

To herself, she practices eliding words and roughing up phrases. Her naturally absorbed voice, the smooth, polished, proper tone has to go.

And for _once_, she's really _certain_ that this loss _isn't_ missed.

Certainty is a nice feeling.

She verbally sidesteps questions about her background after the matches. She realizes belatedly that she thinks of it as "the mansion," not _home_, because she's evading questions _there,_ too.

She has _two_ secrets to keep.

She studies her opponents _raptly._ She has to be absolutely sure _beforehand._ Her first victories are laughably easy, and not much fun. The stalemates are better. She continues to back out in the middle of matches if it looks like she'll have a hard time. _Baby! Baby! Baby!_ As much as she might dream about going all out, standing up tall, taking a little punishment, she can't chance it or she won't be able to go to the _next _match at _all._ She likes them too much to let that happen.

She takes in a deep breath of the place through her nose. Sweat and buttery popcorn have never smelled so good.

After one match, Xin Fu, the announcer who runs the place, beckons her aside to pay her earnings.

"I know who you are, now, Bei Fong."

Ice goes down her spine.

"H-how-"

"I had someone tail you, little girl. I want you _out_ of my ring. If I were _stupid_ enough to want the most _influential_ man in the _region _enraged at me for allowing his _daughter_ to be hurt, I'd run a different _kind_ of ring."

The child has no idea what he means. "Huh?"

"Master Lao leaves my gambling circuit alone, and I want it to _stay _that way. I see you around here again, and Daddy Dearest'll find out. Got it?"

No, she's getting _better!_ It can't be for nothing.

"I'll tell him it was _my_ idea if something happens!" the girl insisted. "_Honest!_ I'll _tell _him you didn't _know_ who I was! Not to _blame_ you! No one will come after you! _Please!"_

Xin Fu considered. "Fine. If you turn over all your winnings to me."

Is_ that _all? The child has been throwing it away on gambling on the outskirts of town or burying it. What use does _she_ have for money? She can't take the evidence back to the mansion.

She simply wants to feel the excitement of the next match. That's all.

"Sure."

It becomes a kind of game, thinking of ways to explain and shrug off and avoid. Questions and pressure to learn at "the mansion" increase because her accent and vocabulary have inexplicably dipped and she's unable to hide the spots of dirt and earth because she can't even see them herself. Her father goes on a tirade and dutifully fires servants he suspects of rubbing off on her behavior and causing her to skin her knees and scrape her hands. Some of the servants she kinda liked, but she says nothing. Daddy says they can be easily replaced. Therefore, _people_ aren't even close to _worth_ giving up her matches.

Secretly, she overhears her father sigh and worry about her and say at least they probably never have to deal with a blind girl being drawn to and "playing with matches."

Her heartbeat speeds up in wariness before she remembers the homophones and she hides the brief thrill by play-pretend-meekly going back to her studies.

But what she _really_ wants to learn and practice is how to make her new sense clearer so she can walk around confidently like a sighted person, and stop asking for _help_ from the servants. Her 'romps on the estate grounds' give her a chance to do so.

At night, she goes to the badgermoles, who pay little heed to the rising or setting sun, aside from avoiding the whirlwinds of wolfbats that exit when it gets dark. The child watches them communicating with wordless body language. They nip and squabble sometimes -_Back off, give me my space-_ _Power. Confidence._ and take turns submitting in continuous exchange. She watches the pair drive off competitors and intruders of their species from their territory. She notices that her second mother is dominant over her partner. He submits more often than she does. It's puzzling. It's not like at the mansion, in many different ways. It's- An invisible-to-her screech, a _flying_ beast, swoops down, and she screams in reply and her heart pounds as her surrogate parents move to defend her. The child cries and her heart pounds for a different reason when they pin the wolfbat down and dismember it. Rrrrip _howwwwwl_

She_ bolts_.

Before the panicked girl reaches the mansion, she stumbles, falls hard, has to pause and wait for some semblance of rationality to return, but all that serves to do is bring up relevant information, she recalls learning that the poor wolfbat is nearly blind, _too_, like her, and the rationality flees once more.

Her parents suffer and lose sleep worrying about her- she can hear them pacing in the halls- when she staunchly _refuses_ to come out of the safety of her bedroom.

Leave me alone.

She changes her clothes and buries the dirty ones. No one will notice one outfit missing out of so many.

"_The big-bad-badgermoles- who earthbend the tunnels, hate the wolfbats, but lo-ove the sounds!"_

-In the present, I wince a little when Aang, blissfully unaware, sings the phrase in the cheerful ditty the other nomads taught him in order to retaliate and annoy Sokka-

In the past, Hippo wonders aloud in stilted single syllables- _why you no pet them?_- why she doesn't touch the ring's animals. Leave me alone, _stupid_. Even though she's plenty intelligent, she doesn't have the personal awareness or right presence of mind from her scare to see the hurt in the slumping of his shoulders.

She's both ashamed and glad to fall into her mother's arms at the end of a long week of holing herself up in her room via earthbending for days on end and sneaking out, letting them think she's still inside. She doesn't try to detangle whether she's ashamed because she trembling and even _needs_ the contact so badly in the first place, or ashamed because her mother can _tell _something's_ horribly_ wrong, is asking, is _begging_ her- sweetie, _please, for mommy_- what it is?- but she doesn't tell her _what's_ wrong.

She'd be in _trouble_ for disobeying so badly and completely if she did that, wouldn't she?

So, she lets her mother and father believe that she is simply needy and clingy and reserved. It's the only explanation. That's just the way she _is._ It's hard being blind, poor darling.

You are _blind._

We forgive you. We _understand,_ honey. It's honesty, because they don't know they don't actually understand. Their already strong parental instinct to shelter her increased degree by degree.

-her mother will call her honey_, 'Baby'_ one too many times, and she'll snap viciously, don't_ call_ me that, only to apologize _sincerely_ and docilely later on for the mistaken association-

-They have already very, very patiently begun to nudge her onto her own two feet. Later they'll say, be a little more independent, darling. Just a little. A proper lady doesn't hug, she curtsies. No touching-

-why _not?-_

-swallowing the venomous question, because they are her parents and they are 'right,' she instead unintentionally telegraphs politely with her stony silence, don't speak to me unless you absolutely need to, don't inquire after my feelings, it only makes me upset, I won't respond, and if I do I will be angry, please leave me alone, it's what I _want_-

-so they** do** what she wants-

-'they turned away, they left me alone' is what she carries with her, that's what's at the _forefront _of her mind, because it _hurts_, even though-

She works on her sight. It's still vague, but she somehow knows it can stretch more.

The child _tries _to fit the words together- to _describe_ it. But it's hard.

You have such an imagination, her parents say. She's still little. Not only in their eyes, but in reality. We're so glad you enjoy all the stories we read you. Want to sing a song?

This wasn't a game anymore, but they weren't aware that it ever _was._ The unlikelihood of-

. . . even with all her knowledge . . .

. . . the words aren't even suited to the purpose in the _first_ place- they were made and are used by people _not like_ her . . .

The miscommunication is not so much a betrayal, because the _words_ were never her _friends_ in the first place, right?

Earth is a head on, _straightforward_, honest element, Deciever, they say. You're _taking advantage_ of it. You're an earthbender! A plate pusher! Why don't you _act _like it?

She tries to block out all the jeers in order to _wait and listen _for the important things. The right timing. She can't make mistakes. She's got to _nail _it.

Even if she _thinks_ she _knows- she sees clearly- _she's almost sure she could _win_ with a bit of elbow grease and a few bruises, she has to back out. Again.

You have no place here! You have no _business_ using earth this way! Even that _weird _way you hold your _hands _says "underhanded!" What, you have a _problem_ with using fists? Afraid of _breaking_ one of those _delicate_ little fingers?

The child uses swear words that they've taught her and her parents have told her not to and _yells_ back, shut up, _**simpletons**_, leave me alone! The strange, different, non-fitting word slips in haste. To herself, she thinks, it's just _necessary_- you're wrong- I'm not _**afraid**_- no- that's not it-

She _isn't._

She doesn't like that word. Afraid. The other insults are bad, but that one is the worst.

Their harsh frustration converged on her. They menaced her. The jealousy was getting bad now because she won more often, and she continued to throw back words of a spoiled child with poor social skills. They could tussle and settle things with each other, and then reconcile. With her, they dealt damage with words because they simply _could not_ touch her, inside the ring because she wouldn't let them and outside the ring because hitting a little blind girl without sufficient grounds was beneath even the roughest of them. She's untouchable. Because when the large, blurry figures got too close, she instinctively flinched from them. Even with her unique sight she was too young and too caught up in her own massive worries and _way_ too inexperienced with _people_ to notice the fleeting pity and embarrassment that they rapidly squashed under more anger.

She buries and hides her face into the willing, welcoming comfort in the crook of her mother's elbow.

_Coward. _What are you _hiding? _What _is_ it? Who _are_ you? If you weren't a girl, you know what I'd _do_ to you! If you weren't blind! If. If_. If._ Bet you couldn't even take on my son in a _fair_ fight. Wonder when you'll start fighting for _real? When? _Huh? Huh?

_They_ collectively wore at her like a river against rock. But it wasn't even _rock_ yet- it was only _young_ ground, hardly far from recently being topsoil, not very compressed or hard, yet it had _some_ resilience left-

Almost as a last ditch effort she finally does offer them some truth.

You learned from _wild badgermoles?_ Yeah _right._

_Please believe me. _

The story about the 'boy who cried wolfbat' seems to have warped its way into reality.

LIAR.

-it's true-

COWARD!

-I'm not-

SNEAK!

-leave me alo-

CHEAT!

BLIND _BANDIT!_

"**The Boulder **_**has had enough**_** of his fellow Rumblers' **_**poor sportsmanship!**_"

And for a few seconds there is _finally_ silence.


	12. Stories, Part II

**Stories, Part II**

They all turn to the Boulder, astonished.

He hasn't gotten into the finals, but he hangs around sometimes. He's middle class, she remembers. Several of the Rumblers are, after all. Toughing out a living as a peasant doesn't leave much time or nutrition for training, though the ones that do make it in are fan favorites. He's never said anything before now. He has _joined in_ before. The cornered girl doesn't trust him. She just lets the embarrassment from having to be rescued latch on. She is short with him. I don't need your _help_.

She's a child, so she thinks like a child. They've battled each other. They'll do it again. He's _not _a friend. He's an _opponent._

She wants a _real_ friend. Someone her own age. The word- the _wish_- _school _sticks in her throat.

. . . besides, even though she has ignored and defied them thus far, her parents warn with what appears as_ truth_ in her special sense that strange men are _dangerous_ . . .

She _is_ still a child.

. . . the injuries they inflict on each other in the ring have proven them worthy of the adjective . . .

Lots of matches go by. She eventually gets more powerful, and she's _done_ using minimal force to meet the challenge.

Got ridiculed for it.

I'll remedy _that_.

. . . is _she_ dangerous? . . .

Yes, their reactions tell her. Finally, some recognit-

. . . dangerous, is that- a _good _thing?. . .

The audience_ roars_ its approval.

. . .

Her confidence rises.

Time passes.

The tournament, is, among other things, a show, she absorbs in private scolds from Xin Fu. It's a cross-regional test of strength and skill but it's also entertainment to the viewers. There are happy mediums outside of beating the snot out of your opponent just because you're able to. It takes combatants out of commission that have to be replaced. He doesn't like the hassle. Sure, for people who _aren't _freakish and strange like _you_, injuries are _unavoidable _sometimes, but that's not the issue. In his tone and spread feet she thinks she can pick up faintly, _don't hurt my boys. _But mostly,_ I'm in charge, not you. Power. Challenge_. Don't let the contest drag on too long either if you're evenly matched. It makes the crowd bored and less likely to bet on you. He doesn't like losing money.

She initially called him Ring_master_, but now she says Ring-a-ling.

She sticks out her tongue and taunts, my daddy would have somebody skin you _alive_ if I _told_ him to. All I have to do is tell him you pushed me into this. She's _untouchable. Unreachable_. I'll play your game by your rules if I _feel_ like it. _Only_** if. **

She still cares about the money not one jot. It's inconsequential.

She has other kinds of _debts _to repay. She cracks her knuckles and _warns_ him with a nasty kind of politeness to stop _lecturing_ her, and when he doesn't comply with the request she _makes _him.

They wanted a real fight? She'll give them one.

She picks fights _outside_ of the ring.

. . . all the while her parents would be _ashen_ at some things she's done, if she only knew what "ashen" even looked like . . .

. . . they can't know . . .

She soon finds herself at the top of the heap with nowhere to go. Next year, she'll be _defending _her title.

. . . the civilized and gallant heroes and victors in the ballads never seemed this down and dirty . . .

The way things go for a while, winning from now on will be all too easy.

She lets up on the gas and resumes her previous style.

She returns to the badgermoles. She thinks she's ready to accept them now. The two spot her coming from a long way off, as she's finally learned how to do. Now she can see all the wolfbats lining the high, distant ceiling of the cavernous bubble in the mountain. The throng of them is so large she can't make out any details about the individuals. They're all the same size from here. Grunting in excitement, the two giants- where did you _go_ little one?- gambol towards her as fast as they can, which is quite an entertaining, amusing and awkward gait since their flat digging claws are longer than the pads they grow from and their hind legs twice as short as their front ones. Because they don't know their own strength, she literally has to cast up a wall to keep them from mowing her down and she giggles like she hasn't giggled for quite some time as they sniffle her all over with moist noses and she takes in their gritty scent herself. This is _home. _When they finally settle down she walks around the pair's enormous girth and scratches them in all their favorite spots that they can't reach and then they circle her in turn, curl up, and heave huge rumbling sighs of contentment.

She and all the participants of the tournaments gradually settled into a slightly uneasy arrangement.

Heh, that as hard as you can hit me? I can take it.

Hey, Bandit.

I'm going to beat you _one_ of these days.

The banter and the nicknames weren't anything like what had come before, even though some of the words and arrangements themselves may have looked suspiciously similar on paper. Most of the time she thought she could tell the difference, now, between when the comments to each other were true rivalry or camaraderie. Sometimes a mix of the two.

She still couldn't risk any bruises, any physical evidence of her time in the ring, so while she could punch some of them playfully, they couldn't do the same.

Even though it _was_ unbalanced and lopsided, so was her whole _life,_ so to her, it _felt_ like stability. It was decent. It was nice.

-The first time Sokka tentatively punched her back, she might as well have been floating on air with giddiness, a wanderer in the warm wilderness who had come across a cool spring-

In the past, she kept a tally in her mind of the words. Boulder was accumulating the least of the negative ones. Hippo, simple soul that he was, had never had any in the first place, she realized retroactively. In the _ring _they all threw out insincere challenges and threats.

The trash talk.

It was a _show_ . . .

Sometimes.

An act?

A story?

An illusion?

_Lies?_

In a sense, her sense suggested.

They're almost like brothers to each other, with Xin Fu as their commander.

She just couldn't see it before.

"May The Boulder speak with you?"

She sizes him up briefly. "You can talk. Dunno if I'll listen, though," she drawls with an easy arrogance long since picked up from the place and the people and her standing. "Might be getting a little_ deaf_, too," she jokes sarcastically, because now she's _so_ much _more_ secure in her "disability." In the back of her mind the arrogance again takes note of his own middle class syntax and presentation. Toph never _has_ overcome the handicap in their attitude- people know she isn't poor. They didn't cheer _her _as the underdog, and they don't cheer as loudly when she defeats those of much lower status. She files it away under things she doesn't understand. She's at the top, above them all in more ways than one. Separate. Untouchable. Alone.

The end of his sentence reaches her.

" . . . The Boulder wants to apologize."

"That was a _while_ ago. Why are you bringing it up _now?_"

There were words for people like this, her parents said. Fair weather friends. Summer soldiers. They were nice and polite to you when you had influence, when you could do things for them, even if they had been nasty before. They expected things immediately in return for their good deeds. When the winter clouds gathered, they would leave you again. And even though she didn't know how light or shadow worked, the young noble had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about.

"Because the Boulder was angry at you, of course! Did something for you, and you just-"

Was _this_ what they meant?

Did it even matter? They had_ bad_ history, along with some good. She is unwilling to forgive.

Had he defended her when she was on the way up?

Or did he just do it to help her?

Were either of those even "good" at all? The blind girl who had painstakingly scratched out her independence had to think. She doesn't hear the rest of his sentence because she is ignoring him.

"What I **just** did was tell you the _truth._" I don't _want_ your help.

There was a pause and she got the distinct feeling he was studying her.

"_Will_ you ever tell us your name?"

If she did, she might as well invite the whole troupe into the mansion and tell 'em to prop their feet up on the tables. It would skip the steps of her already spread fame in the underground culture reaching her parents "aboveground." And be more amusing.

. . . or _nightmarish_ . . .

"My _name's_ **The Blind Bandit**." Pride had forcefully excoriated all the past connotations. It rolls off her tongue like sweet **_vengeance._**

The other competitors often grumble about her stupid. vindictive. constant. reminders.

I am _blind._

And I can _still_ bend _circles_ around you.

-The other man was already down, but in her _rage_ it didn't matter. _Whack-_

_-What's_ my name? **_Say it!-_**

"You know mine."

"So? Kun Zhen is boring compared to The Pebble." It was true. His stage personality was more entertaining. Cool. Trying to keep two voices separate was difficult, anyway. She could attest to that.

He made a big theatric gesture. She wasn't the only one who carried around their newfound identity outside the ring, sometimes, like a colorful mask. "You know, your talents are wasted here."

A brown-noser, too. How _quaint. _At least the flattery's _honest_.

-awash in them, her father disdains certain sycophants, but basks in others-

"Did you really- did you really learn from badgermoles?"

The question catches her off guard, because it's been so long since the day he first spoke out against them.

It_ seems_ like longer than it _is._ She was a different person then.

-whack-

-_Arrgh_-

-fury-

-Crunch-

_-he howwwwwled_-

-She _bolted_, face flushed and heart pounding-

-footfalls-

-_No, no, no, too far, no, no, no_-

-not a game-

Why should she trust them with the badgermoles? No one had brought it up again. Besides, it's her _edge,_ she reasons. It's what makes her champion. The others don't share their styles or their tricks with each other, because it makes it more interesting. Neither will she.

"I made that up," she lied. "_Sorry_ to disappoint you." But she's not sorry.

Another long pause. "Do you ever think about what you could do away from the ring?"

The little powerhouse raised an eyebrow. That was bold and straightforward, even for an earthbender. To have the temerity to even_ suggest_ a thing- "You want me to leave so_ you'll_ be top camel-dog, _Pebble?_" The usually affectionate name is now stony.

Fists clenched, vibrations rapid. Anger? Or fear? Or both.

"Never mind. _Forget_ it, little-"

She swiftly shifted one of her ankles diagonally

all of this in the small movement, an unwritten and unspoken pact shown through bared teeth she had in some cases _literally_ hammered out with all of them**_  
_**

**_not_ going to _take _that anymore. _Never. Again_. ** it_ must_ be sarcastic, not sincere, else, silence. you are _permitted_ to lie lightheartedly to me and I will happily return the favor and the goodwill, but _Otherworld help you_ if you speak truth I need _no help_ reading on my own, you are _treading on dangerous ground here,_ _back off_, _Power, animal-hostility-human-malice,_ I am your master not your equal nor your friend, these are_ **my**_** rules, my** **_LAWS_**

and he flinched from her a few steps, fully ready to block.

She stood back up straight and rolled her shoulders. The brief danger became a near miss.

She let him leave.

It wasn't until a few weeks before the finals that she overheard The Boulder had a tattoo.

What is a tattoo? Despite the novelty of a word she doesn't know, a rare occurrence, she discarded the question in favor of pre-match hype.

They exchange their usual stage lines, and she very indifferently deals him a particularly humiliating defeat.

Xin Fu then makes his usual offer for anyone to face the champion.

"_I don't really want to fight with you, I just want to talk with you."_ The new boy says.

She is uninterested in words. The first time she clashed with Aang was the first time she had _ever _fallen from the ring. It's not simply 'unusual,' she's completely astonished and angry with herself all at once- where did she _possibly_ make a miscalculation? Where was the _mistake?_ Although she's scratched and scuffed _herself _up before, training or with her teachers, no one else has ever accomplished it. She storms away fretting in her mind, preoccupied over coming up with lies and excuses to explain her condition later when her parents arrive at the mansion from an outing. She hasn't had to do that for a while. She's shaken, though they've taught her to bury it under toughness.

_"I just want to talk to you . . . Please listen!"_ he calls.

She tosses over her shoulder by well worn reflex, _"Leave me alone."_

She thought she was rid of him, but she turned out wrong.

_"What Aang's** trying** to **say** is, he's the Avatar, and if he doesn't master earthbending soon he won't be able to defeat the **Fire Lord**."_

She throws her hand in the stranger's face in a wordless instruction to be quiet._ "Not my problem."_

-Gaoling is untouchable, that's all that matters, her parents spin white lies to the little child so as not to alarm her or make her upset. We'll tell you when you're older. The small bit of honesty appears, and appeases her. You don't have to worry about it, dear. It's nothing. Go play on the grounds, take supervision, and earthbend like you like to, but _only_ if you make sure to be _perfectly _washed up for dinner. Don't try anything too dangerous. They talk about the war behind closed doors when they don't think she's listening. A few things have stuck, but mostly the words go in one ear and out the other. She isn't concerned about any peasants' issues. She likes earthbending-

He uses his status as the only living airbender to directly take the front door to her house after obliquely slipping in the back. But he wasn't much like the airbenders in the literature. They used _circles_, didn't they? Over dinner he was _stubbornly_ trying to reveal her secret. Making a vulturebeeline straight to the heart of the matter. Like an earthbender. _Without_ her _permission!_ Sweat and tears spiraling down the drain! He has _no idea_ how hard she's worked to keep everything she's arranged from falling apart!

You're an airbender! A Twinkletoes! Why don't you _act _like it!

You have no place here! You have no _business_ using air this way!

Even if he _thinks_ he _knows- he sees clearly-_

Her brain short circuits with memories and words. Loneliness shoulders its way in when he casually mentions to her parents that he's _her _age.

She considers that maybe, she should give him a chance.

He's surprised at her sudden change in attitude, but switching back and forth between worlds has long since become second nature to her, securely ingrained. She doesn't wrangle with words as much now, because she's become more like their master. Incisive. Wit. Surety.

_"Even though I was born blind, I've never had a problem seeing. I see with earthbending. It's kind of like seeing with my feet."_

She _sees_. Astoundingly, it's really _that _simple. His offer to leave sounds wonderful, but she worked _so long_ for stability. For security. For peace. Uprooting now-

No, she can't.

She'd _like_ to be a hero,

. . . _me _a _soldier?_ I'm only twelve . . .

but it isn't like the stories.

. . . they are all pretty and pristine, and I'm so . . . stained . . .

_"My daughter is blind. She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile." Innocent.  
_

You are _blind._

After she is freed from her temporary prison, she's reading the frustrated doubt in his words. There have been so many clues, but he holds onto the image she has presented to him because it's all he knows for _sure._ You are blind, father, and I've made you that way.

She yanks her hand away, wordlessly communicating I've lied to you, I've sneaked around you, but he only receives part of the message.

Maybe she can fight, he'll accept that, but he can still **_help_** her.

In the minutes it takes her to walk to and onto the ring, he commands Master Yu, one of the best masters in the south, to help her defeat the Earth Rumblers. She overrides him in clipped, short sentences because _time_ is of the essence,

. . . or because I'm running away from explaining . . .

"_No_, Dad, this is _my_ fight." _Mine._ "I know them. I know their secrets. I'm champion. I can't tell you everything right now. I have to free the Avatar."

Not because she cares about the boy, but because _I'm their **master,** and by all the **Spirits** I will **remind** them of that. _Nothing happens without _her _say so.

-even without any earth she could feel Xin Fu oozing surly satisfaction for trapping _her_ in a metal box and finally being in control again and _she will make him pay_ **_dearly_**-

When the time comes, after she's finished using her fists, to use words, she thinks she can feel the hurt and the betrayal she's inflicted on them.

_"Dad, I know it's probably hard for you to see me this way. But the obedient little helpless blind girl that you think I am just isn't me. I love fighting. I love being an earthbender, and I'm really, really good at it. I know I've kept my life secret from you, but you were keeping me secret from the whole world. You were doing it to protect me, but I'm twelve years old and I never had a real friend. So, now that you see who I really am, I hope it doesn't change the way you feel about me."_

She feels a strong pang when the three other kids leave, and maybe, she considers, there was a little something else to why she did it.

Did he say something about a _vision?_ Was _destiny_ a real thing?

She re-examines the epiphany she had that led _her_ to offer a _truce_ to _him_- in the books _airbenders_ are the ones historically known as peacemakers- in the first place.

-In the present, Aang marvels, "What a near miss that we hadn't left before you came running, Toph."-

-"You have no _idea_, I almost _didn't._" I say seriously. And he really _doesn't_. I'm not sure I could explain_ all_ of it, but I decide to take a crack at it. I leave out the things I want to, of course-

In going into the ring, she was forced to avoid, evade, and think differently to overcome stronger opponents.

He could_ learn faster_ from her than anyone else, she's almost sure.

But she can't be absolutely sure _beforehand._ As much as she might dream about going all out, standing up tall, taking a little punishment, she can't chance it or she won't-

Not this again.

**No.**

I've avoided. I've evaded.

-Later she'll put it knowledgeably but bluntly, "You've got to stop _thinking_ like an airbender"-

-go all out, stand up tall, take a little punishment, that's what they've taught me, it's what I'll teach you-

Is there any other earthbending teacher who's going to be able to mentally approach him from something that approximates his own style? Who can teach him the differences between them?

And the similarities? The bridging points?

Maybe it _is_ like the stories. Maybe some things happen for a _reason._


End file.
